Visas are delaying deadlines – Kommersant FM
[ad_1]
It has become more difficult for Russians to obtain a Schengen visa. For example, you can now wait more than 45 days for permission to enter Spain, and this is provided that you manage to get in line. In addition, the work of regional branches has been suspended. The time required to obtain visas to Italy has also increased. What are the difficulties? And what else should Russian tourists expect from visa centers? Alexander Rassokhin will tell you.
When the EU abolished the simplified visa regime for Russians a year ago, the terms for issuing visas, the package of documents, and the consular fee increased: from €35 to €80. In the case of some Schengen countries, the consequences only became apparent in the summer. The missions of Italy and Spain, whose policy towards Russians has hardly changed since February 2022, have been asking applicants to allow up to six weeks for visas since July. You can still catch a free slot to sign up for an interview for another month. Kirill, who is going to rest in Spain in October, decided to save time by obtaining a French visa:
“The French now issue visas for longer periods. Often for two or three years, or even five years, which happens very rarely among the Spaniards. Since we have a fairly long history of travel to the EU, there is a high probability that, most likely, we will get a long-term visa from the French. There are very few windows. Catching them on your own is problematic, so many people use bots in Telegram. There are a lot of advertisements for such bots on various forums, we used one of them, signed up on August 10, and on September 5 the bot signed us up for September 11.”
The situation with Spanish visas was aggravated by the move of the Moscow visa center. Since the end of July he has been working on Kosmodamianskaya embankment. Now they also accept applicants from the regions. In particular, in Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Rostov-on-Don, according to official information, branches are closed “for technical reasons until further notice.”
Tourists who are now trying to apply for a Spanish visa risk being left without a holiday, says Yulia Gromova, head of the Schengen department of the Visakhod company:
“The Spanish Consulate has changed the visa center. And this new visa center simply does not cope with its task. They don’t have any personal submissions, they accept documents, and then they just throw them on the floor, and they lie there for a month. They are not even transferred to work at the consulates. We do not enter at the moment, for example, through our contacts that we had before. But now the situation is beginning to stabilize.”
The situation with Greek visas is better. You can find a free slot in a week, applications are considered for another two or three. Permission to enter France will have to wait at best for a month, but even now the consulate can issue a multivisa immediately for six months. Italy – even for a year. Refusal of applicants is still rare, but the decisions of the consulates have become less predictable, Yulia Gromova continues:
“Statistics for Russians no longer exist. With a good history, they can issue a single-entry visa for the duration of the trip or return an empty passport, refusing to issue a visa for six months. Previously, it was often the case that if one person was rejected, then so were the others. And now they can refuse, for example, a husband, but give it to the wife and children. Neither the Italians nor the French have any prejudice because of the current situation.”
Most often, the Schengen countries insist that the applicant apply for a visa in the country of his permanent residence. But in some cases, Russians manage to do this while in neighboring republics, for example, in Armenia and Uzbekistan, Maya Kotlyar, head of Mayel Travel, an individual tourism company, notes:
“People turn to the consulates of Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan. You need to sign up and sometimes you have to come a couple of times. That is, first the registration, and then the arrival after the registration. This may take two to three weeks. But I don’t see them going specifically to get a Schengen visa. They even go to Mauritius, but combine it with vacations. Mauritius is especially popular for obtaining a US visa.”
In the case of other countries, obtaining a permit is feasible, but very difficult. For example, for a short-term Danish visa, you will have to apply to the Lithuanian consulate in Kaliningrad. Austria often rejects applications from Russians. And, for example, Germany can request health insurance from a local company and an extract from a bank in the EU.
Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.
[ad_2]
Source link
